Imagine a child in an interview with an investigator about an alleged child sexual assault. The investigator is trying to figure out the details and asks the child:
“Where were you when they touched you?”
Is this a good question for the investigator to ask to gain information? Or is there a better way?
Research has found that asking kids questions like this can be problematic because children are susceptible, especially with adults. The question above suggests to the child that they were touched, which can result in inaccurate information for the remainder of the interview. Therefore, child forensic interviewers must follow strict question guidelines to gain accurate and informative answers while avoiding misinformation from the children during the interview. Improperly formatted questions limit the child’s freedom to fully express the details of their suspected sexual abuse. Questions not properly structured may result in case dismissal due to a lack of evidence.
Forensic researchers are improving the guidelines for forensic interview questioning.
For example, Friend and colleagues (2024) recently examined one element of forensic interviews in their article “The Utility of Direct Questions About Actions with the Hands in Child Forensic Interviews.” This study explored three types of questions: (1) direct hand questions involving the actions of the hands of the suspect or victim (e.g., “what did he do with his hands?”); (2) general invitation questions; and (3) cued invitation questions. The researchers hypothesized that direct hand questions would result in more detailed answers than general invitation or cued invitation questions. Researchers believed that although both types of invitation questions allow for a broad recollection of events, they can be too broad for the children to provide novel and accurate responses.
In this study, researchers analyzed 197 forensic interviews with children ages 5 to 17 who were suspected of being victims of child sexual abuse. Direct hand questions proved to be beneficial to gaining information during forensic interviews – 76% resulted in informative details and 59% resulted in new details. Thus, results supported the hypothesis. However, interviewers asked more invitation questions than direct hand questions, so a larger amount information was obtained with invitation questions. Future research should explore direct-hand questions without invitation questions to see if they provide more accurate and novel responses than invitation questions.
Forensic interviews of children who are suspected to be victims of sexual abuse provide critical information to prosecutors. Information obtained during the interviews can be necessary to properly charge suspects. Improvements to child forensic interview guidelines will lead to higher levels of safety for children suspected of experiencing sexual abuse. The results from the study show that direct hand questions may benefit interviewers and prosecutors by providing the children being interviewed the opportunity to reveal more significant details of their experience without influence from the interviewer. However, research should continue to explore how forensic interview guidelines can be improved to better protect children from sexual abuse. Properly conducted forensic interviews are extremely important in allowing prosecutors to charge and convict perpetrators, which protects children from being future victims.
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